La carte bancaire, plus qu’un simple outil de paiement

Hi Julien, what do you work on at Worldline?

I am the Head of Sales for our payment card and strong authentication offers for the banking sector.

When did you join us and what were you doing before?

I joined Worldline in 2008 and, before that, I was a sales representative at Gartner (ed: Marketing Research firm). Worldline being a global company, I was able to transfer my previous international experience.

You were at the PayForum recently, what did strike you the most during this conference and the event in general?

The response to my presentation on our MyCard Profiler offer was very positive. Indeed, the audience was really interested in the theme about the consumers’ control over their payment cards. Mastercard participated alongside us in this conference and attendees had questions about both our solution and theirs, which proves that this is a strong subject. Banks are looking for value-added solutions which will allow them to upmarket certain cards and add value to them and our solution clearly covers this need.

Any anecdotes about the PayForum to share with us?

In fact, PayForum is often the occasion for me to reconnect with some of our clients, with whom we have difficulties to get in touch outside of the trade show because of their busy schedules, and to be able to know more about their strategies and share our own with them.

You participated in a conference at the PayForum about payment cards, what has concretely changed in the last few years for this payment method?

The payment card has really changed in the last 5 years with the arrival of new mobile technologies, including the integration of the card in smartphones with initiatives such as wallet and mobile payment.

How are the consumers impacted by these changes?

It is necessary to understand that consumers are not looking for just another payment method but for a value-added payment method. It is this added value that will guide the adoption rate of these new payment methods.

Impacts for consumers are numerous and our solutions, and more particularly MyCard Profiler, can answer these issues of:

Security: In the face of an evolving ecosystem and security vulnerabilities widely covered in the media, consumers need to be reassured and to be able to have more trust in their payment instruments.

New use cases: The habits and consumption behaviors of consumers have evolved and payment methods need to follow these changes, especially in the case of the convergence of m-Commerce and brick-and-mortar retail. Consumers want to be catered to the same way whether they are shopping online or in physical stores.

It is true that, in France and in Europe, the adoption rate of the new mobile technologies, like NFC, and of these new payment methods remains low but we are seeing a strong uptake and the future looks promising. The transformation of e-Commerce into m-Commerce and the ability to pay with smartphones in brick-and-mortar shops are both factors that will influence the evolution of this adoption rate.

And merchants?

The arrival of the Internet and mobile phones revolutionized the merchants’ approach towards payments. Merchants are thinking more and more often about mixed purchases journeys in which distance and convenience selling complete each other to accompany the evolution of their customers’ consumption behaviors. To this sense, we have to power this cross-channel evolution with suitable technological payment solutions.

And what about the impacts on the banks?

They could be very much impacted by this evolving ecosystem. First of all, newcomers are entering the payment market without any prior experience in this industry, the latest one being Facebook. For this new breed of actors, payment is no longer just a transactional tool but a mean to retain their users. The traditional actors, such as banks and schemes (ed: Visa, Mastercard), are hard at work coming up with new innovative services in order to face these new entrants. In the past, payment pure players had the upper hand on payment methods and the focus was put on their technological features. The focus is now on the end user as well as on the provided added value.

We have been hearing a lot about card personalization and tailoring, can you elaborate on these?

Up to now, end users’ experience with their payment card could be frustrating at time. Consumers would have their purchase blocked because they had reached the limit on their card, for example. The goal of MyCard Profiler is to enable consumers to change certain parameters on their card, such as the limit, the sales channels where it can be used, the allowed geographic areas and usage notifications. Specifically, consumers will, for example, set alerts on payments above a certain threshold that they themselves have set, or made from a specific country or on a certain sale channel. Consumers will have control and will therefore no longer be dependent of a card contract that they do not have full knowledge of. We provide more trust to consumers and allow them control over their spending with a more personalized service.

Advantages for banks are also numerous because it can reduce operational costs linked to customer service, limit fraudulent cases and accompany consumers towards high-end card products.

How does our solution, My Card Profiler, cover these issues?

First, MyCard Profiler is a set of modules that can enrich the user experience and customize both the parameters of their cards and alerts that will be generated. With our expertise in each of these modules, such as mobile apps and card parameters, we have created an all-in-one environment, MyCard Profiler, in which consumers can consult their payment statements but also manage a number of parameters associated with their payment cards and their notifications. In addition, MyCard Profiler uses related Worldline solutions such as strong authentication with Trusted Authentication as opening card parameters requires a secure environment.

Thank you for your time today, Julien. I will leave you with one final question: we live in a hyper connected digital world and, suddenly, you find yourself stranded on a desert island, which electronic product do you have to have with you?

My smartphone, of course, and a solar battery to fully enjoy the experience!!

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